I'm calling my initiative take the other to lunch. If you are a Republican, you can take a Democrat to lunch or if you're a Democrat, think of it as taking a Republican to lunch because there is no shortage of the other right in your own neighborhood, maybe that person who worships at the mosque or the church or the synagogue down the street or someone from the other side of the abortion conflict - or maybe your brother-in-law who doesn't believe in global warming.

Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.

I actually don't think we're more divided than we were. I think it's more evident. It's more evident because of the internet.

Your path is your own, but you must walk side by side with others, with compassion and generosity as your beacons. If anything is required it is this: fearlessness in your examination of life and death; Willingness to continually grow; and openness to the possibility that the ordinary is extraordinary, and that your joys and your sorrows have meaning and mystery

We need to claim our power for something beautiful, something harmonious and something globally healthy.

If you have fathered a child, if you have given birth, if sex is a source of healthy pleasure, thank your pelvis and your reproductive organs for allowing you to feel the creative rhythms of life.

I've realized that aging is the younger cousin of dying. ... How much time do I have left? We become aware that we're on the downside of the mountain, coasting toward our final days.